Why 60 hertz or 50hert

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There often is an effect but many ( most ) products are made to work fine on either.

Maybe you could be more specific if you have a concern about this.

Graham

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Motors will turn at the wrong speed if not used at their rated Hz.

60Hz transformers can overheat if used at 50Hz. The lower the frequency, the heavier the xformer (more iron, more wire). Transformers can overheat There is a potentialfor

60 Hz needs less iron but has higher losses.

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Not all motors by any means.

This is why most are designed to be 50/60 Hz.

Can being the relevant word. It depends on the product.

Graham

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either.

Also see:

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The US and some countries use 60hz, Canada uses 50hz or used to as does Europe. Some countries use 30hz. The military uses 400hz power in many applications. What I don't get is how can the US grid be tied to the Canadian grid as we sell power back and forth with different freqencies. I know they make phase converters (that is how the military gets 400hz) but seems like a gigantic waste converting back and forth.

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Imagine plugging a 60hz motor into a 400hz outlet! You gonna crank some rpm's.

Nope. 60 Hz although some generators were 25 hertz (but no more - see

400 is used for aircraft and in some specialized shops.

30 ?

Where ?

Graham

And aerospace. It keeps the weight of transformers down.

Graham

Canada has been 60Hz for as long as I've been alive. The power grid is directly interconnected with the US grid.

Transformers, motors, alternators, it's all smaller.

I hadn't thought of motors and alternators too.

The A380's using variable frequency alternators btw to make even further weight savings.

Graham

No, not all motors -- but virtually any induction motor will be affected, and there are lots of them out there. Even electromechanical pinball machines were made with different motors for 50 vs 60 hz.

And I'm not sure why you th>

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Canada converted to 60 Hz back in the 50's. Regards Lee in Toronto

Suppliers to the world market usually design for 50/60 Hz since 60Hz use is quite rare on the global scale of things.

60Hz only transformers tend to be the speciality of the USA.

Graham

Many long distance feeds are now HVDC, which deals with the frequency difference problem just fine.

I believe parts of Japan are 50 Hz and other parts are 60.

I've never heard about 30 Hz, but the swedish railroads use 16 2/3 Hz (50/3) for the trains. The store behind this was that that was such a low frequency that they could use DC motors in the early electrical locomotives.

I live by the railroad, and when I was using a CRT monitor I could see when a train approached from the north, as the current to drive the train induced a strong magnetic field at 16 2/3 Hz, and the picture would wobble slightly.